Diaries of a Nokia Fan Boy

During my readings today I stumbled across Engadget’s review of PowerGenix NiZn batteries. From a glimpse at the numbers in the review it looked like the batteries the batteries were a much needed improvement in the space of mobile gadgetry:

• 1.6V nominal Voltage
• 30%-50% longer usage on a single charge
• Better able to produce high current

While the review doesn’t specify, I’m guessing that Engadget was comparing the PowerGenix NiZn AA cells (known) to Energizer’s ‘Ultimate Lithium’ AA cells (unknown), in a Speedlight SB-600 hot-shoe flash (known). Anyone having used hot-shoe flashes knows just how demanding they are of batteries, and how quickly they can chew through them, so the test is good.

What surprised me is that they did not post the mAh rating of those batteries. Indeed, even after poking around PowerGenix’ website I could only find a mWh rating of 2500 mWh for a AA cell. Of course, wanting to compare to some of the high capacity NiMH batteries that rating was useless so I found a conversion:

mWhrs = mAhrs * Votlage * hrs (originating from P = I * V)
moving some of the variables around we get:
mAhrs = mWhrs / Voltage (since hrs = 1)
so:
mAhrs = 2500 mWhrs / 1.6V
mAhrs = 1560 mAhrs

That means that these batteries have almost half the capacity of NiMH (high cap NiMH ~3000 mAhrs). Now at first I found this quite confusing since 1500 mAhrs would not be enough to charge the flash 300-400 times. And then I realised that I’m in fact basing my comparison on a worst-case scenario for the batteries. First of all, NiMH batteries are afraid of fast discharge scenarios, and a hot-shoe flash is definitely a fast discharge, second of all, the hot shoe flash works much better with the higher voltage batteries (NiZn 1.6V vs. NiMH 1.2V). In fact, that assumption is built into the review as well, and I believe a different review would be required for longevity in low-current, low-power devices, perhaps a wireless mouse or keyboard.

So my conclusion is actually similar to Engadget’s: if you’re using the batteries in a high-power, high-current device such as a hot-shoe flash, then these batteries are for you. The otherwise, however, is unknown. While I would expect the NiZn to lose out in a low-demand scenario, such as a wireless keyboard, I just don’t know how well those batteries keep their charge. Case in point: my keyboard lasts months on four AA Eneloop cells, and at those time frames its the self-discharge rate that comes into play, not necessarily the capacity.

I guess every battery has its purpose, and this is a rechargeable battery that has long been missing from the options list.

-Nokia FanBoy

read:
PowerGenix
Engadget Review

Ok, so this is something that I’ve wanted to write about for quite some time but never seemed to get the chance. Now, it seems, that the news wagon is fairly slow, little going on, so I figure its the perfect time.
I see this being a multi-part (or multi-session) post, as there is quite a bit that I would like to go over. I’ll try to draw on real phones but hey, this is just my imagination talking, so that might now always be possible.

Well first off, what is wrong with the current phones? Why is it that I say that there is no perfect phone out there?
My perfect phone does not yet exist as the features I want somehow seem to be mutually-exclusive. I want my phone to be a powerhouse and have a long-lasting battery, but it seems that the only phones out there that can do that are almost big enough to be someone’s house. I also want the phone to by thin and light but then you can forget about the features. Anyway, here’s what I think the perfect phone would have:

Signal Strength & Quality
Starting with the basics, I want the phone to work just about anywhere, that means that it has to have a strong, clean signal even when speaking in an elevator or underground parking garage. To be fair, most of today’s phones do this quite well. I use my N95 8GB just about anywhere and only in a couple confined places do I regularly lose service (such as the London Drugs in Lougheed Town Center). Now, the interesting thing, is that my Blackberry 8100 seems to have signal in some places that my N95 8GB does not, and vice-versa. So there must be something that can be done in order to get signal everywhere. Of course, often times the stronger signal results in shorter battery life, and I think there should be an option to boost the signal strength in places where the signal is weak (with the option to only do so with a hands-free, since the radiation output will be quite significant).

Telephony
Next up, is the most basic thing that the phone should do well: telephony. While this encompasses the signal strength/quality topic, its actually much larger than that. For starters, the earpiece on the phone has to be of high quality in order to let you hear exactly what the other person is saying. The sound should be automatically adjusted for the surrounding environment. The microphone should filter out that same environmental noise so that the person on the other end of the call is actually able to hear me. That said, the microphone, or microphones in the case of noise cancellation, have to be of very high quality as well. After all, this is the single most important function of the phone. Additionally, the user interface surrounding telephony needs to be very well thought out: the volume buttons in the appropriate location, the loudspeaker or call-muting easy to turn on off, of course the bluetooth accessories need to pair effortlessly, and connect and work without any glitches.

Display
We all use our phones outdoors, in fact, its nice to think that we spend more time outside, so this should be even more important! Although realistically we spend little time outside, instead breathing in conditioned air, with the eerie glow of the monitor as the only light source at times. But in all seriousness, this is a very important part of the phone, especially if its a touch-screen phone or if you, like me, use it a GPS.
The phone screen has to be vibrant, have high contrast, be easy to see on bright sunny days, and have a nice, high resolution. Of course depending on the resolution of the screen, whether its a touch screen or not, and the form factor of the phone itself, the screen should be of a good size. For instance, an all touch screen device should have a 3.2″+ screen, preferably 16M color AMOLED, with VGA or higher resolution; where as a qwerty E71-like phone could have a 2.4″+ screen with HVGA resolution (of course 16M color AMOLED still stands).
The capacitive vs. resistive touch screen technology is really a trade-off, so its not a requisite, however I would rather have the resistive only if it implemented that super-high-sensitivity resistive technology that was shown around a while back. (if anyone wants the link let me know I’ll look around)

Build Quality / Durability
This topic is actually quite an extensive one, so I will try to briefly go over what I think this should be. First off, high quality materials need to be used. That’s not to say that it has to be metal, although it helps, but there are very high quality, pleasant plastics around as well. Plastics, while being lighter, tend to be less resistant to damage if only very thin sheets are used. Personally, I would rather have my phone out of metal, even if it means it will be heavier, because its more durable and can make the phone thinner/smaller. Of course the exterior is not the only important part of it, the interior design and construction of the phone has to be held to high enough standards that the phone being dropped is taken into consideration (e.g. by placing rubber dampeners at critical points), as well as the phone wouldn’t make creaking sounds when squeezed. Now Nokia phones used to be this good (not sure about the current generation), but then the quality seemed to drop. For example my E60 was build with amazing quality, dropped it a million times and it just got a couple scratches and that’s it, where as my N95 8GB is not quite of the same construction, and I won’t even start on the old and very popular 3310. To be fair, the E71 has very commendable build quality, so it could be that the E-series is held to a high standard than the N-series, which is understandable.
There are some interesting concepts out there, like the Nokia 3720 Classic, which look like a regular phone but are really very durable – that’s what build quality should be like (given that the touch and look aspects are as I described).

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Update:

Ok, so I think its time to add some more details, don’t you?

Storage Capacity/Memory Card
I strongly believe that there is no reason to carry around multiple devices when just one device will suffice. Case in point: I don’t carry around an MP3 player because my N95 8GB gives me fantastic audio quality. Granted, 8GB of music is getting a little low, and because of that I’ve had to scale down my MP3’s to 192kbps – being an audiophile I would like to have 320kbps. There are of course many reasons to have large amounts of storage, especially with phones capable of capturing and outputting HD Video content. This means that more space consuming files will be stored on the phone. Personally, I believe that having a 32GB internal flash drive, with the ability to insert a 32GB microSD card will provide plenty of storage. The first 32GB would give 99.95% of the people out there enough storage, however having the ability to carry around a couple extra microSD cards would cover the other 0.05%. The only other option is USB-host capabilities and enough juice to power a 1.8″/2.5″ hard drive – but that’s not very realistic.

Processing power/speed
This is kind of a multi-hardware piece topic in that its not just the CPU that matters. Case in point: my E60 had a 220MHz CPU, which would have been enough, only the very limited amount of RAM made multi-tasking nearly impossible. Also, I’m finding that more and more manufacturers are integrating GPU’s in order to boost performance, which works quite well, even if it uses a fair bit of power. What would be nice to see is a multi-core CPU, perhaps at 400MHz-800MHz variable clock speed, with the ability to turn off a number of the cores. The CPU should either have a dedicated GPU (potentially integrated into the main processor circuit), or be designed with GPU demands in mind (that is, vector/shader calculations, and so forth). The phone should also have a minimum of 128MB RAM, however 256MB or even 512MB would be nice to see. Bottom line, is the phone should not slow down even when having to draw multiple three-dimensional, semi-transparent, reflective objects, or when encoding/decoding HD Video content (camera recording, or outputting to an HDTV). Of course all this would have to run smoothly even with multiple processes running in the background.

Audio
We all listen to music, many of us, like me, prefer to do so on our phones. This means that dedicated, specialized hardware is a requirement, in order to get consistently high quality across all frequency ranges. This also means that the phone needs to have a standard 3.5mm audio jack, as well as good quality loudspeakers. I rather like my N95 8GB’s 3.5mm solution, which supports a variety of equipment, including TV out (albeit at QVGA quality). One thing, however, that I liked more on my E60 than on my N95 8GB, is the way it handled call and message tones when playing music: instead of pausing the music for the message ring, it just decreased the audio volume, beeped, and brought the volume back up. Something like that shouldn’t even be that difficult to make configurable.

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Update 2:

Alright, it’s that time again, lets update this again.

Battery
We all hate it when this happens: you’re in the middle of your day, hours away from any potential power source, when the icon on the right appears on your phone. What tends to make it even worse is when you know you will have to call someone, listen to music, or even use the GPS function to get home. So what are the options? You can always carry around a spare battery or charger, but that gets more problematic when you don’t have any place to put it. You can keep charging your phone whenever possible, but sometimes, that’s just not possible due to time constraints or lack of a power source. Well there are two more options. They may be more complex, however are still quite realistic.

Option #1: We can drastically reduce the power consumption of the hardware. There are already a number of components that do that, such as a new generation GPS chip, with higher sensitivity and much lower power consumption. There is also the Bluetooth/WiFi on a single chip (part of Bluetooth 3). And finally, different printing processes have different power consumption levels, such as 60nm, 45nm, 32nm, etc. All of these combined can drastically reduce the power consumption of the phone.

Option #2: We can use different battery technologies. Different technologies have different properties, and there are two main ones that I am thinking about. Using a different composition within the Lithium battery can yield up to a ten-fold increase in the capacity, or it can allow for charge times of a couple minutes. Both of these technologies are already past the concept stage and well into prototyping. Really the biggest issue is the mass-production set up. The biggest players in these are carbon nano-tubes, and Lithium Air. The capacity is an obvious one, however the fast charge time would allow for charging stations in malls, gas stations, and other locations. There is, I should say, another technology: Fuel cell. It falls under the higher capacity category, however I believe its still too far off to really call it.

The best part about these two options is that they’re really not exclusive, both can be incorporated at the same time. Allowing us to use our phones, and indeed other gadgets, for days on end.

Camera
To me, a good camera on my phone means that’s one less gadget I have to carry around, and as much as I like gadgets, I don’t like to carry them all. There are some limitations on the current cameras, however if you understand that this is still a cell phone and not a dedicated camera, those limitations become quite insignificant.
First off, the camera should be 5-8MP, as any higher resolution and the dpi becomes too high and not enough light is captured on each pixel. The sensor should also be larger than what is used now in order to capture more light, although with small quarters it might take some fancy printing technologies to get it to work just right.
Second, the camera should have some sort of optical zoom – there’s already a Samsung W880 with a 3x optical zoom, but that phone is a bit bulky, a little on the large side. There are a couple of different variations on the standard optical zoom, such as Origami optics, and they seem to work quite well, some are even getting close to production.
Third, the phone should have a dedicated camera processor, kind of like Motorola’s ZN5. Having it will allow more complex features and better quality processing, as well as increasing focusing and shot-to-shot speeds of the camera. Now, it is quite possible that a graphics-derived CPU will be able to handle all the calculations and produce good quality, but it seems that a company who’s sole purpose is cameras will be able to give better results. A Nokia-Canon partnership would be nice to see.
Fourth, a dual-led light and a zenon flash. Enough said.

GPS/Compass/Navigation
Well I don’t really know what to say here. This is kind of a two piece: hardware and software. Both have to function well, with slightly different requirements for each one. The hardware needs to be sensitive enough to be able to quickly obtain a GPS signal in streets with high-rises all around. A digital compass and an accelerometer should be used when GPS isn’t working, or simply to quickly sense changes in direction. For example when turning or when navigating through tunnels. Finally, the navigation software needs to have the most up-to-date maps, should be easy to use, with clear instructions. I’ve always like TomTom’s software for its interface and navigation speed, however Navigon’s interface seems quite intriguing as well. Bottom line: it should be a pleasure to use, not a nuisance.

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Update 3:

Alright, time for the last and final update of this little article. And thankfully, there’s just one piece left. Well there are more I’m sure, but one left that I am going to talk about.

Money
I know what everyone’s thinking – “The phone should be free!” Well I must disagree. We all tend to buy more expensive things because they’re better, they last longer, and more of a pleasure to use. And to be honest, I wouldn’t like the device nearly as much if I got it for free than if I had to spend my heard-earned money on it.
So what is a good price for the be-all, end-all device? I guess it would depend on just how much of the criteria the device meets. For instance, if the device doesn’t have GPS then the price needs to reflect that. If everything I mentioned is met I would say that a good price would be around $1,000, however I doubt I would actually buy it for that much.
That’s really the killer now, isn’t it? I mean if the phone is perfect I should be willing to spend that much on it, however if I’m not going to spend my money then why bother, right? I guess that’s why we don’t see a lot of these “perfect phones” out there, however many come mighty close. I suppose manufacturers are doing the best they can given that not a lot of people will buy these phones.
But at the same time, there must be enough people willing to spend that much. I mean I would like to think that when I start making more money I’ll be able to afford these phones. And for now I would contend with waiting a couple months for the price to fall and then buy the phone for $500 – $700, of maybe even just buy it used!

Bottom line, the phone needs to be priced fairly according to its specification. Releasing very expensive phones with low sales volumes doesn’t mean the phones will cause the company a loss since they have a lot of marketing value. I would be proud to have a phone manufactured by the same company that gets “The best phone of the year” award year-in, year-out.

I hope this wasn’t too boring for you and that you actually got something out of it. I will be making a point-form recap of this, but for anything with detail you’ll want to look here.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: my brain!

We all know software evolves, and operating systems are no stranger to this. From dealing with our own computer operating systems we also know that often times this evolution means that older programs no longer work with the newer operating systems. However computer programs are different from mobile programs in that they generally cost more money, much more. And computer operating systems have the luxury of very powerful processors and virtually unlimited storage to include libraries or pieces of code to maintain backwards compatibility with older programs. This saves the consumer money and hassle; and means programmers don’t have to worry about writing software for a dozen different operating systems. When we consider that the market for computer programs is many times larger than that of mobile programs, we see the problem.

Of course the problem is not the evolving operating system, or even the breaking compatibility. The main problem, in my opinion, is the timing of this happening. Symbian broke many programs going from v3.0 to v3.1 to v3.2 in the past several years, however these breaks have been somewhat small, and were easy to fix. Then Symbian came out with S60 9.5, adding touch functionality and removing the need for a hardware keyboard – and this was a major break in the very paradigm that many programs were working. However this was a necessary evil as the very shift to touch screens was going to cause this anyway. Now Symbian is planning on replacing the UI toolkit altogether.

For many years they have been using Avkon API, and will now replace it with Qt’s UI toolkit. On the one hand this will make the very development process easier, but on the other hand this is a major change that will require a lot of work. I cannot say that I disagree with this – evolution is necessary for any platform to survive, but what puzzles me is why they didn’t do it before, during the release of the 5800 or even the N97. I guess the answer is much more complex than I can imagine, so I won’t blame them for it. I’m just happy they continue to innovate and do what they can to stay ahead of the curve.

-Nokia FanBoy

PS: I am, however, glad that they chose this particular toolkit, take a look at the Qt website for benefits if you want to know why.

I’m not entirely sure what I want to say in this post, so you’ll have to bear with me for a little bit.

In the past…
telling apart a smart-phone from a dumb-phone was quite simple. Smart phones were generally required for some features such as running multiple applications at once, being able to run Java apps, or browse HTML web pages. Even IrDA (infra-red) and later Bluetooth were generally left strictly for smart phones. Finally GPS came out, and that was deemed too expensive for mainstream phones, so smart phones were the only ones to support that feature.

But what has happened now?
Java is included on pretty much any phone you can think of, and through some simple multi-threading so is support for multiple processes. Most newer phones support HTML browsing, while some smart phones don’t support JavaScript, or web-based Java and Flash content, so that can’t be the differentiating factor. IrDA is no longer included in all but the smartest of smart phones, and Bluetooth is included in just about every mainstream phone. And GPS? Well even that is starting to get included on specialty dumb phones (that is if you can call a specialty phone “dumb”).

Where to look?
Maybe I’m approaching this from the wrong point of view, so lets what Wikipedia defines an Operating System to be:

An operating system (commonly abbreviated to either OS or O/S) is an interface between hardware and user; an OS is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer.

Ok… so not very helpful, maybe Smartphone?

A smartphone is a mobile phone offering advanced capabilities, often with PC-like functionality (PC-mobile handset convergence). There is no industry standard definition of a smartphone.

So there is no industry standard definition, but reading on we see David Wood, EVP at Symbian Ltd., defining a smart phone as:

“Smart phones differ from ordinary mobile phones in two fundamental ways: how they are built and what they can do.”

And we finally see some defining characteristics of smartphones:

• Full-featured email (i.e.: ActiveSync, BES, etc.)
• Ability to read business documents (i.e.: PDF, MS Office documents/spreadsheets, etc.)
• Advanced contact management
• Standardized application development platform and interface
• Advanced hardware – GPS, accelerometer, QWERTY keypad, touchscreen, digital compass

Of course I would say that some other features are required for a smartphone to bear that name, however many of those are found even in dumb phones so they’re not really defining characteristics. On the other hand, GPS and QWERTY and touchscreens are far from being unique to the smartphone realm.

So what OS’s are there?

• Android (HTC, Samsung)
• BlackBerry OS (BlackBerry)
• iPhone OS (Apple)
• Linux (Motorola, Asus)
• Symbian (Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola)
• WebOS (Palm)
• Windows Mobile (HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Asus, HP)

Well at the very least here we can see that some companies are putting all their eggs into one basket (Nokia, BlackBerry, Palm, Apple) while others are trying “diversify their portfolio” (Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC). Which operating system is the best? I think its more a matter of taste as the features between them tend to differentiate quite a bit, however I do believe that some heave clear advantages over others.

It is also important to differentiate between smart phones and operating systems. A perfect example is Symbian S40 vs. Symbian S60. Both operating systems are build on the Symbian OS, however S40 is considered a dumb phone OS, where as S60 is considered a smart phone OS. In this post I will be talking about the S60 of operating systems.

This also brings me to my next point: I strongly believe that up until recently iPhone OS did not even deserve to be put into the smartphone OS category. While the iPhone may have had a large following (as any Apple product), and had some innovative applications, it lacked some of the most basic of concepts available on other operating systems, such as multitasking, task management, and access to the file system. Oh wait, those still aren’t available, guess its STILL not a smart phone OS (just let me cross it off the list…. done).

So where does this bring us?
So we have 6 operating systems left, of which 3 are mature: Symbian, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry OS; 1 is immature: Linux; and 2 are still in their infancy: Android and WebOS. I’m afraid that due to the sheer number of Linux flavours out there, I will have to fore-go that OS in my further discussion. However, do not see this as a negative for Linux, its a powerful OS, I simply do not have the time.

This leaves us with 5 operating systems, all of which have done something to revamp themselves in the last year or two, and continue to do so now.

The mature Operating Systems
Symbian, Windows Mobile (WinMo) and BlackBerry OS (BBOS) have been around for a long time, and have gone through a number of iterations, bug fixes, and varying flavours. Currently they are all facing the problem: how to take an operating system that was designed for a small resolution screen, for use on a phone with hardware buttons (or a mouse, in the case of WinMo), and convert it for use in a high-resolution, finger-friendly touchscreen device. The entire thought process has to be stopped, and restarted in a completely different direction.

We can see Symbian doing its thing with v9.5 S60. However they were not able to completely turn around as they were afraid to lose a dedicated following. Their fears were not misplaced, however they approached it from the wrong point of view. When Nokia 5800 was released, it was hated by those new and old to Symbian and Nokia, as the interface was inconsistent and many things in the OS still required that stylus. I should note, however, that a stylus is not a bad tool, as I believe it is the easiest way to input Asian words/characters/text (not sure what the correct term here is). Which is also why the 5800 and N97 alike have resistive touchscreens, and not capacitive ones that cannot accept stylus input.

While Windows Mobile has been going on and on about v6.5 and v7, we have little to see in the way of hardware; and manufacturers such as HTC have quickly caught onto this and designed their own shells to put on top of the existing WinMo 6.0 and 6.1 shell, which has not changed since the early days of the OS. It should be noted, however, that the number of these shells out there signifies that it is easy to design and implement; this is a brownie point for WinMo as highly customizable interfaces are important to keep the users entertained. Finally, I give credit to Windows Mobile (or HTC at least, not sure) how easy they made the flashing process for their phones. After all, a new OS means new features, new interfaces, and with an all-touchscreen phone, it practically becomes a new phone altogether.

At last we come to BlackBerry OS. I have only played with it a short while, however even this purpose-built operating system is being revamped for mainstream use. Of course since the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 came out in 2006, BlackBerries have been regarded more and more as a mainstream phone with a status symbol. I believe this to be mainly attributed to the reduction in the size of the phone than in the improvements of the operating system. The newest OS revamp, arguably the second, was caused by releasing the Storm – BlackBerry’s first touchscreen phone. The issue here, much like with Symbian and Windows Mobile, is that all that RIM did with this operating system is put an under-designed touchscreen shell on top of an operating system that was never meant for it.

All three of these operating systems are amazing at what they do, the problem is, that unless their designers scrap everything they knew about interfaces and start fresh, these operating systems will be doomed to fail.

The immature Operating Systems
This brings us to the newest, least mature, and yet the most promising operating systems in the market to date: Android and WebOS. Each system brings something new to the table, and generally does so quite well.

Android was Google’s way of driving the free and open culture, while at the same time strengthening the grip on all of your data. I’m not going to bad-mouth Google, I believe they’re a great company and have done some great things, it just scares me as to how much data they have on just about anyone in the world. (on to Android…) Android was designed from the ground up to be used with fingers, and not a hardware keyboard. Granted, the original release required a keyboard and would have been useless without one, however that was not due to poor design, but under-development due to time constraints. My Magic, for instance, is quite usable with just 8 hardware buttons and a trackball. The next positive aspect to it is the operating system’s embrace of today’s open culture. Because designing for the phone is so easy, we have hundreds, if not thousands, of great applications all vying for your attention. Besides that, replacing this operating system in my Magic has so far been a breeze and I hope other manufacturers support this. My only gripe with it is the rather simplistic task manager.

WebOS, on the other hand, I haven’t use yet. Although based on what I’ve heard about it, it too seems to be quite promising. For instance that live-card-based home screen is definitely an interesting concept, one which I would be quite interested in trying out. However the resource limitations of the Palm Pre means that we can only have a handful of application open and running at the same time. This would be fine if only I didn’t have a half-dozen applications running on a regular basis. Of course this is not a short-fall of the operating system but of the hardware, so it shouldn’t be judged quite so abruptly. While WebOS will support all of the advanced features, this OS is simply too immature to be able to tell where it will lead. For that we need to wait at least one or two more iterations of it.
In fact, not having a logo shows just how immature the operating system really is. Come on Palm, we want that logo!
 
 
 
 
Conclusion:
Besides iPhone OS not being a real operating system, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you hanging on this one. I guess you can think of each of the descriptions of the different operating systems and their own little conclusions, but besides that there really ain’t that much to say. Do feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer them all.
My only word of advice: when you’re looking at which operating system to choose, ask yourself: are you looking at the OS itself and its features, or is the shell responsible for some behaviour/functionality? While this may not make that build of the operating system usable for you, it may prove that the OS itself is fine, and maybe only a new manufacturer is all that is required.

-Nokia FanBoy

Well this is some interesting news on a Tuesday afternoon. While Rogers may not be the first to do this, the fact that we will soon be able to use these kinds of speeds is quite amazing.

But lets be realistic for a minute. I am currently running a 7.2Mbps-capable phone, and my tests are returning about 2.4Mbps. When I was using a 3.6Mbps-capable phone, my tests returned 1.2Mbps. So we can make the naive assumption that when Rogers rolls out 21Mpbs, we will “only” be able to effectively use about 7Mpbs of it. Now I mean that is mighty fast, but its only 33% of advertised speed.

On the other hand, how much do we really need it? Most cellphones can’t handle those speeds, I was surprised mine could handle 2.4Mbps. This is mostly going to be noticed by people with data cards and USB modems, and I would question just how useful it is to have such a boost in speed on a laptop, especially when overage charges are quite high. What I would much rather see is improvements in latency (response time), as most packets that go in and out of phones are fairly small, so its the response time that plays the bigger part in effective throughput.

-Nokia FanBoy

Source:
Engadget Mobile (read).

I was glancing over various posts throughout the web today and two posts caught my eye. While I likely wouldn’t have covered something as dry as financial figures for a company, even if its Nokia, reading these posts highlighted that most news can be spun two ways.

The cold, hard fact of the matter is that while Nokia is enjoying a steady increase of market share and operating profit compared to Q109, when compared to last years (Q208) figures, the numbers look a little more dismal.

GSMArena (read) is reporting that the numbers are a success, that Nokia is looking good as its coming out of a hole of a depression:

Nokia have just announced their Q2 financial report. The numbers are showing sings of recovering from the shock of the recession – their operating profit went up by almost 51% and their estimated market share increased a percent to 38%. The total number of phones they shipped was just over 103.2 million, a healthy improvement over the 93.2 million the previous quarter.

Symbian Freak (read) on the other hand is reporting this in a more negative aspect, instead focusing on the fact that compared to last year, the figures are horrid.

Nokia’s second quarter 2009 reported operating profit decreased 71% to EUR 427 million, compared with EUR 1.5 billion in the second quarter 2008. Nokia’s second quarter 2009 non-IFRS operating profit decreased 62% to EUR 775 million, compared with EUR 2.1 billion in the second quarter 2008. Nokia’s second quarter 2009 reported operating margin was 4.3% (11.2%).

Of course, I have to be fair, by the end of the article Symbian Freak did state more positive aspects of the figures and showed that Nokia is, in fact, doing well.

But the tone of the articles was set before most of the words are read, and that was done by the photos used. Both websites used similar images as the icons for their articles: a stock-esque arrow moving in either a positive or negative vertical direction as it moves forward in time. GSMArena uses a positive line shooting into the sky, immediately below the Nokia logo. Symbian Freak uses a negative line, falling to the ground, accented with a bar graph in the background showing the same statistics, and a depressed-looking stick figure at the location where the arrow meets the ground.

The main reason why I wanted to post this is just to point out that different websites, reviewers, writers, etc. can show different sides of the story, or even the same side from a different perspective. While that is not a surprise, what did catch me off guard was that I would have expected the two websites to be reversed.

-Nokia FanBoy

So the lack of Wordpress on my new Magic continues to force me to write up my posts via computer. Fortunately for me readers, this means that my posts now have some photos included in them.

This post is in relation to tethering and Roger’s policy on doing so. As recently posted by Engadget Mobile (read), Rogers is currently permitting tethering for those with a data plan of 1GB or higher. This policy is said to last until December 31st, at which time those that need tethering abilities will have to call in to Rogers to have it enabled for their account. Now this raises a couple flags to me, the biggest one being “Will I have to pay to have tethering enabled?”. I first signed up for the 6GB/$30 data plan last year when the iPhone came out and drove the pricing down, however when I signed the 3 year contract required to get that promotion, I did so with the understanding that I will be able to use my phone for tethering to my computer. If Rogers goes and forces users such as myself to now pay even more for the service which we signed a contract for to begin with, well let’s just say there will be a large number of Retentions calls. My other concern is how will they track tether via programs such as JoikuSpot? I mean with regular tethering I understand that the phone sends out a specialised code to signify that there is a computer using data via the phone, however with the program there is no such signal being sent out. Of course Rogers could start looking at large amounts of data being transfered over a short period of time, however using YouTube, internet radio or SymTorrent could easily surpass what any laptop browser could require.

Finally, I believe that this policy will only affect those that signed up for a data plan before June 8th, 2009. Presumably this means that those of us that have had the same data plan since before that date can continue to tether without any issues (including those with less than 1GB of data). What is not clear, however, is what happens come December 31st – will everyone have to call in and confirm/sign-up for tethering, or just those that signed up after June 8th?

The mobile space seems to be getting more and more interesting, and I will be sure to follow it every step of the way.

- Nokia FanBoy

So this post is a first on many levels. For starters this is the first post I am writing on my computer, since I haven’t found any apps to do so from the Magic. Also, this is the first time I am trying out a Magic! And finally, this is a first post in a series of reviews of the Rogers branded HTC Magic.

I will immediately apologize for the poor quality of the photos, as this is my first review, and it is 3:30am. My future reviews will have better quality photos.

Well why don’t we start with the obvious question: Why?

The answer is really quite simple, I wanted to try out something other than what I’ve been used to for a while, and Android seemed like a logical choice. At the same time I wanted to try out a touch screen device to see how I would like the interface.

Overall:

Well a quick overview of the phone revealed some nice features and some discerning issues:

• Solid construction, with a great weight balance
• Good screen, with sensitive and responsive touch
• Pleasant operating system, considering its still in its early stages
• No 3.5mm jack!!!
• Incoming messages show up as 3 hours ahead
• Short battery life

Well read on for more details on this, but I must say that overall I am pleased with the phone so far.

First impressions:

When I first picked up the phone I was surprised just how small the box was, even though all the same parts as usual were there. As soon as I took out the device I thought of how sleek it looks with that all glossy finish, and the second thought was, naturally, how much of a finger print magnet it is.

Turning the phone on seemed to take for ever, however the initial set up was quick and painless. I was impressed with how little set up is required for this phone. You take it out of the box and you can use it immediately. Being connected to Exchange made it even easier as I didn’t even have to load any contacts.

Construction:

The phone’s consutrction feels quite solid with the exception of that matte gray plastic that runs the entire side of the phone: it creaks when you put pressure on it. The glossy black plastic gives the phone a refined and sleek finish and really makes it look like a toy to get excited about. Unfortunately, it’s already gotten some scratches on the back side, so I’ve already put it in a silicone case and ordered an Invisible Shield to protect it further.

Thankfully the buttons aren’t left out in the construction of a touch screen phone: the press needs just the right amount force, and is confirmed with a confident click. The trackball I’m not too sure about – it seems to really be excess in this phone, and i’ve rarely had to use it so far. However I understand the need to go to it: differentiation. The volume rocker on the side, on the other hand, is not solid and has a lot of play in it, however the play doesn’t feel cheap, simply as if its supposed to be like that.

The port on bottom of the phone is the only physical way to plug into the device. While I’m all for using less ports in the device I do not understand why HTC did not include a 3.5mm audio jack. This makes the phone much less valuable to me as I have to spend money on an adapter so as I may be able to use my favourite headphones with it. And speaking of headphones, the ones that came in the retail packaging are complete rubbish, making my ears hurt after barely 30 minutes of listening to them. I understand the need to save money, but at the very least having the microphone as a sort of extension cord / adapter would have made them infinitely more useful as I would be able to use my headphones right out of the box! This is coming from the remote control / adapter that comes with the Nokia N95, it is extremely useful.

HTC Magic - Bottom/Right	HTC Magic - Top/Left
HTC Magic - Front with Si Case	HTC Magic - Rear with Si Case

Screen:

Well the screen on this phone sort of impressed me. The colors are fairly vivid, however they didn’t really jump out at me as amazing. The resolution is quite nice, however could be higher – HTC Diamond was released by that time with twice the resolution. What is also quite upsetting is that the screen tends to lag a fair bit, especially considering that the Diamond didn’t seem to lag any less (performed by turning on the camera on both phones and moving the phones side to side to see the screen refresh lag).

The capacitive touch screen feels nice – the actions smooth, and the construction high quality. While the hardware should support multi-touch the operating system does not. I do not see this as much of an issue since its not quite as useful as one would hope it to be. The touch screen is quite sensitive and responsive, making it feel even better.

Media Playback:

Unfortunately, the phone lacks in this department. The audio player has nothing in the way of equalizers, and lags a fair bit when dealing with large lists of artists, albums, or songs. The speaker in the back sounds tinny, and becomes useless in an environment even slightly noisy. For example: I used my Nokia N95 8GB to listen to music while in the shower, the Magic doesn’t get loud enough, or give out enough base, to make it audible while in the shower. Much in the same way, showing a video in the mall I had to cup my hand behind the phone to create an acoustic mirror so that the audio could be heard.

Messaging, Gmail and Exchange:

This part really confused me. While the software is nice, typing is easy, there’s a very strange error: incoming text messages are time-stamped three hours ahead! After searching around online I realised that this isn’t really Magic’s or even Android’s fault, and is likely an issue with the provider. In order to solve this problem I had to download chompSMS, which managed to correctly keep track of my conversations, and displayed them in nice bubbles.

I was very pleased with the Gmail integration of this phone, with the exception that I was not able to select not to synchronize my contacts or calendar. Since I do not use my Gmail contacts, having an extra 300% of useless contacts is rather annoying, and the same goes for calendar.

Exchange integration, on the other hand, I was quite pleased with! The emails looked great, even supporting HTML and text formatting. The contacts were downloaded with complete sets of data, including pictures! And the calendar synchoronized perfectly, including repeating entries with some of those having been modified. I should note at this time that I am using MS Exchange Server 2007, as earlier versions may not support features such as contact image synchronization.

Programs:

As I am still getting used to the phone and downloading and trying out software I will need to make a separate post for this, based around Android as opposed to the Magic. I will note, however, that the Facebook app is great, but would be nice if I could leave comments on wall posts, status changes, etc.

Web Browsing:

The browser is quite  impressive, having come from a non-touchscreen browser. However it is upsetting that the browser does not support flash, considering my almost outdated Nokia N95 8GB plays embedded flash without any issues. Besides flash, the web pages look fantastic – paragraphs are automatically resized for landscape/portrait orientation, entering URL’s is easy, and clicking on links is a joy.

The only down side in this, as in most browsers, is the inablity to select a picture and save it on the phone. If I was able to do that then more of my posts would have photos in them.

Conclusion:

So far, I really like the phone. Its got some glitches and some poor design choices, but I like it. I guess we will have to see how this will go on for the next month or two.

The only thing I wish someone could tell me: What is the target market for the HTC Magic? If anyone can enlighten me please do so, as I am really confused.

-Nokia FanBoy

For once, not posted from my phone.

UPDATE:
This post has already been updated and the update can be found here:
Rogers HTC Magic (Android): Days 7-14 (Updated)
A new update will be coming fairly soon, as well as I will start daisy-chaining my posts from now on to avoid confusion.

-NFB

So everyone has dual core computers, and sure they’re fast, but they consume more power! We only have more cores because we can’t get them to be any faster without the use of liquid nitrogen! But dual core phones? Yes! Won’t that seriously hinder the battery life? No!

I’ve gotten a number of people asking me about why they would want multi-core and I always have to explain that there are, in fact, benefits to running two+ cores on the phone as opposed to one.

To understand why, I first have to explain a little bit of physics behind computing and power consumption.
As everyone knows, the faster a processor, the more power it consumes, and that holds for single-core and multi-core processors. However, what if we put some hard numbers into this? Say we wanted to process twice as much information in the same amount of time. This means that we can either double the processor frequency, to handle twice the operations, or we could toss in an extra core, to have each one handle half the operations. However, what does that mean to our power consumption?
Well if we double the number of processors we obviously double the power consumption to double the workload capabilities. (note: its a little more than double power consumption and a little less than double computational power to account for the extra operating system computations and extra hardware to deal with the extra cores) Now, while the double processor frequency will give us true doubling in computational power, the power consumption will actually increase four times! What if we want to quadruple the computational power? The quadruple in speed will result in 16x the power consumption!

So while the twice-fast-processor may be a tiny bit more powerful than the dual-core processor, it uses nearly twice the battery power!

But how valid is this?
Well we can take a look at the pro’s and con’s of each approach.

Dual core processors have the disadvantage of increased complexity if they are to be fully utilized. Let me explain what that means. Up until a few years ago, software was written for linear execution, and when dual core processors were introduced they didn’t actually perform twice the work because the software couldn’t properly utilize them. Software had to be rewritten to support parallel execution. The same thing is true for phones! Phone software will have to be rewritten to support this new style of processors before the software will actually utilize both cores!

On the up-side, however, the operating system could be slightly modified to allow two programs to run on different cores, thus still producing twice the computation.

Of course, there is another benefit: turning off one of the cores.
If the phone is not performing any computation heave tasks, there is no need for the second core to be consuming power. A similar effect can be achieved with throttling the faster processor, however the power savings aren’t as great as those in the dual core processors and they still add more complexity.

Another issue: heat. Faster processors generate more heat, which becomes a big issue for small devices with no ventilation to speak of.

Finally, processors can only get so fast (just like what happened with computers), and software is becoming more and more demanding on computations. So really, we have no choice! We have to go to dual core, it just so happens that there are also benefits with going to dual core processors!

Which is why I can’t wait for Cortex-A9! But that is a discussion for another day

Hope you found this helpful, feel free to ask questions or just leave comments below. I promise to answer all of them as best I can

-Nokia FanBoy
Posted from my Nokia N95 8GB

Posted by Wordmobi